Bogwoppit

Bogwoppit by Ursula Moray Williams is a funny, slightly grubby fantasy for 8 year olds about a girl who moves into a house she was never invited to.

What happens

Samantha Millett has spent years telling her class that her aunt is Lady Clandorris of the Park. Now Aunt Lily is off to America with her new husband, and Samantha has been handed a suitcase and told to go and knock on the door.

Nobody answers. So she walks in.

She eats the buttered toast she finds sitting in the grate. She picks a bedroom upstairs. She sleeps there all night, uninvited, while her aunt snores on the floor below.

That is Samantha all over. She has read a great many books in which a fierce relative is won round by a brave and charming child, and she fully intends to be that child.

The house is not helping. It is grey and gaunt with no electricity at all, rust streaks in the bath, wallpaper hanging off the walls in loops, and something damp shuffling about below the kitchen.

When Samantha finally sees it, it is not a rat.

A bogwoppit is round and black and furry, with big blue eyes and a long thin tail it never stops swishing. It has two legs ending in wet rubbery feet with webbed toes, short feathered wings where its front paws should be, and a fringe of fur over its eyes that gives it a shifty look. It mews like a kitten. It empties a milk jug in seconds. It bites you, then sobs until you feel dreadful, then does it again.

Aunt Daisy wants it gone. Back to the marsh pools where the rest of them live, and Samantha can be the one to carry it.

What makes this such fun is that Samantha is not a sweet child. She is nosy, greedy and completely certain she is in the right, and the book knows it. Her aunt is every bit as stubborn and quite as rude back, which is exactly why their arguments are so enjoyable to read.

Something to bear in mind. Samantha is told she is not wanted, to her face and more than once, by the only relative she has left. She shrugs it off and the tone stays light, but a child who worries about being left behind may feel that more sharply.

What to read next

If they like a big cold house with something wrong in it, we have The Wolves of Willoughby Chase as well. Another girl arrives at a grand English house in deep snow, and the governess waiting for her in the hall is a great deal worse than Aunt Daisy.